The air around him tasted rancid. Like decay, boiled sweat, and cooked pus. He rolled a bit of ash off his hair and smeared it on his nostrils to get the unpleasant stench out of his nose.

After a one-sided blaze like that, it was hard to keep his eyes open and his mind attentive to the world around him. His embers didn’t let him sleep, since there was more work to be done, but man did he want to bathe off the soot and fill his nose with lavender and vanilla.

“Hey, now’s not the time to get lost. Fucking move it.” The black wizard sternly commanded him. Her body was in total disrepair and one look at her told him she was dry on mana but here she was talking to a superior like a mother talking to a stupid kid.

She was an ally but his fingers twitched to get rid of the noise.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Tyler attempted to defuse his nerves, “I’ll get going in a second.”

The woman was antsy and disgruntled but it wasn’t like she was in any condition to do something about it so they met his way and he reveled in the small victory.

“Thank you for helping us. I don’t know how we’ll ever be able to repay you.” The other, older woman with the glasses and brown bun reached out to hold his hands.

He raised his hand in a stopping gesture, “Don’t worry about it. It’s coming out of her pay.” Tyler pointed at the other wizard, much to her dismay.

“Wait, I thought since she was the one the townsfolk were able to hire that your help was just…”

Tyler scoffed, “What that it’d be free? D’you think I’d come out here out of the kindness of my heart? If she can't cut it after answering your call, she pays half of what she’d earn and a fee on the differential between us for the trouble of pulling our resources over here.”

The woman was incredulous but, like what did she expect? She was a wizard too, in her own cute little way, so maybe he expected just a little more of her than the rest of the rabble.

“Did you know about this?” Her attention turned to the black wizard but the woman was like steel, unflinching.

“I made the choice to respond to the call. There’s more to it than he’s letting on but yeah. And don’t you fucking take pity on me.” She barked back.

Good. She knew her place in the world. Knew how the system worked. He expected as much from the way she carried herself but it was nice to be reassured there were some brains in that bundle of suicidal impulses. She reached into her pockets with her good arm and dropped a bundle of stars into his outstretched hand.

“But this isn’t fair! You’re just-”

“I’m just saving your town, ma’am. These services are a lot cheaper with a mook like her assessing the situation before sending big guns like me. Just the way these things work.” Even that was too much goodwill for them.

Honestly they should have just been grateful someone of his caliber showed up to this shithole speck of land but they didn’t know any better.

“You’ve got your payment. I’m gonna lead the rest of these people out of here. Just hurry to the center or you’re going to be dealing with a major threat.” The black wizard warned him.

He waved her fears aside, “I highly doubt anything he does is gonna stand a chance to what I can do. Thanks for the goods and good luck healing from your defeat.” Tyler stamped his foot onto the ground and propelled himself up into the air. He ran his fingers on the grooves of the obsidian disk on his hip and his trajectory in the air stabilized.

The world around him felt oppressive even through the armor that clung to his being. The rogue wizard dug his roots quite deep into the town to have his domain spread out so far and manifest so vividly.

In the distance was the center of the small town, the clouds overhead swirling above like a massive indicator pointing to the source of all the town's troubles. Minions were congregating from their patrols and within buildings to head for the town center where they stood and surrounded a building.

“Making my job easy for me.” Tyler chuckled, pushing himself faster across the sky to float just above the event. He muttered an incantation and felt the sweat on his skin sizzle into vapor. Flames began to lick his skin, warm tendrils at first before one ribbon became dozens and then hundreds. He condensed his body, crossing his arms over his head as the natural descent of gravity took over the momentum. Fire propelled from his feet to give the attack an additional oomph as Tyler cannonballed the building into a crater.

He wiped dirt and wood flecks off of his coat and observed the aftermath of his dramatic entrance. There were charred limbs scattered in all directions with a man rolling on the ground to douse out the fire.

The monsters were upon him now. They scattered around the crater with their dilapidated bodies, heaving heavy limbs at the wizard at the behest of their creator.

“I see you still have some fight in you,” Tyler took a deep breath and smiled casually, “I’m glad. You’re going to make a nice stepping stone.” He conjured three motes of fire in the palm of his hand and threw them at the distracted body.

Monsters flung themselves into his compressed stars, columns of white fire coming down from the sky to smite them where they stood. Meat bubbled and charred and exposed bone turned to ash but that did not abate their advances.

“Grah!” A creature made a battle cry as it charged towards Tyler with a bony shoulder tackle. He leapt out of its attack and reacted with one of his own, slinging five bolts of fire at its back.

The bolts splashed across its hardened exterior, only one burrowing far enough into exposed tissue to burn and cauterize its insides.

“I will flay you for what you’ve done!” The wizard had finally rolled the fire off of his body and he looked in disrepair. Tyler could see the wizard run his finger across his own body like a scalpel, removing burnt skin and allowing it to slough off onto the ground. “But not like this. Today is the birth of a new Laz!”

Tyler gathered the ambient fire scattered across the battlefield and pulled it towards his palm into a compact ball the size of a basketball. He pumped his mana into the sphere and flung it at the wizard, uninterested in any more of his fanatical ravings.

Flesh golems threw themselves at the projectile and suffered the consequences for it. Upon impact, the ball lit up and exploded with a blistering roar. Creatures at the epicenter were melted where they stood with those at the edges seared by the wall of heat.

They’d done their job for their master, however. The sheer bulk of their bodies inhibited the size of the explosion.

The rogue wizard had caked his naked flesh in smoldering ash and stretched out his arms.

“I am reborn!” He cried out. The ash on his exposed skin fused into the muscle tissue as Tyler watched the older man's stature shrank and skin clear into an olive tone. His hair, once slick back with grime and oil, was now black and curled in all directions.

Did he not require a child for the ritual?

“You took over a town and caused this much trouble over a new body?” Tyler could not hide his incredulity.

The wizard ignored his inquiries, slack-jawed as he observed his hands, pressing fingers on his skin in apparent ecstasy.

“I’m talking to you!” Tyler flared up and pressed his hands together at his target. A molten gout of fire erupted from the palms of his hands towards the wizard. Other bodies flung themselves in the attack's direction but he fed the spell more and more mana to keep the intensity going.

Ignore his question, will he? They were in a different league and he had the gall to ignore him! He’d burn through every pound of flesh if it meant that the wizard ended up roasted and begging for mercy.

“I have what I want.” Laz waved at Tyler and smiled. “All my anger’s ebbed away so I’m taking my leave.” A flesh golem from the crowd scooped the young man into its arms and ran out of the battlefield, the rest of the minions giving their master a wide berth.

Tyler snapped. Limits be damned, he was going to raze the town and cook his target alive. He slammed his foot on the ground and catapulted himself into the air, getting a good view of the flesh golem running away from the town and the mass of minions below contorting and reforming their flesh for aerial denial.

“Split the earth and rise, Hell Fire!” Tyler commanded his latest spell to activate. Buildings sunk into a widening chasm that cut off the towns outer limits from the rest of the world. A wall of black crimson fire erupted from the crack, the split attempting to slowly encircle the rogue wizard. He could feel blood pooling from his nose and ears, the targets annoying domain taking its toll on his mana reserves but it was nothing he couldn’t take care of with a potion afterwards.

“Woosh!” An ashen white spike grazed Tyler in the air. While some monsters below attempted to reform into something that could take flight, a bulk of the crowd shifted their bodies to accurately chuck projectiles in his direction.

He couldn’t go further in the sky without straining himself even more, the oxygen already thin at his altitude. Tyler flew towards his target, the rabble on the ground scrambling to follow behind him.

The wizard slung spells at him, chains with explicit commands he would never succumb to. His target was a parasite, a malignant and opportunistic predator amongst the unmagical masses.

There was nothing he could do to a true apex like him.

Cutting off his targets exit, Tyler spun himself in a wreath of flames and plummeted to the ground. The ground shattered at his impact and the fire exploded in all directions. His coat was covered in the blood of the golem his target had been riding with. The young man crawled on the ground, away from Tyler with legs snapped and twisted in several places.

“No! I have a fresh canvas.” The man cried. Tyler watched the pathetic excuse for a wizard drag his mangled body a few paces on the ground before growing tired of the scene.

The monsters in the distance were fast approaching so Tyler grabbed the wizard by the scruff of his new hair and flew up into the sky.

“Please! Let me go! We’re the same, you and-” His pleading was cut short with guttural shrieks of pain as Tyler dug four molten fingers into his stomach.

“We are not the same.” Tyler spat back. A column of fire bursted from within the man, his body writhing in pain. “We. Are. Not. The. Same.” His statement was punctuated with an explosion of flames burning through his target's organs. The man couldn’t even cry out anymore. “What’s wrong? Done already?” He lit the man on fire and the body quaked reflexively at the explosion.

Tyler pulled his fingers out of the man's stomach and flicked the blood off his hand. The minions below were inert, flesh falling apart. The city had caught fire. Buildings burned underneath him.

He felt at peace despite the blood caked in his ears and face.

“Ah. Ah.” The remaining gasps from his indignant target.

“I’m bored of you.” Tyler pressed his other hand next to the hand with a tight grip on the man’s hair and showered him with a stream of fire. It seemed that he didn’t even have the energy to scream as his skin charred and muscles boiled underneath.

When he was done, Tyler flung the corpse to the ground and made his own slow descent. The domain the wizard had entrenched into the fabric of the city receded and with it the acrid stench of rotting meat and decay.

Tyler took in a deep whiff of brimstone and smoke and smiled.